Monday, 23 November 2009

Soul Khaya and friends

There is a new yet ancient way of being that’s breaking through the horizon. All over the globe a new Christianity is being born, a movement away from doctrines and dogma towards a life of habits and regulas, from religion to relations, from joining an institutional church to following Jesus in community with other hopeful believers.

Together with a few friends, my wife and I are feeling the first kicks of this unborn hope. We call it Soul Khaya.

We long to live in real community with one another, to share our stories, our fears, our hopes, our prayers, our stuff, our homes and all of our lives with friends and strangers.We hope to be the change we long to see.We try to walk in the deep and dangerous footprints of Jesus.We invite strange people into our journey.We hope to get invited, because we are the strangers.We look at our own lives and discover our own strangeness.We practise the art of getting lost and being found.On Fridays we share a traditional South-African meal in a local township eatery.We long to break out of our middle class way of living in the suburbs and we battle with the temptation of being safe and comfy.Once a month we get together and allow our faith and doubt to rub off on each other.

The last few months I have met more and more people that are witnessing the movement of the Spirit in similar ways like Soul Khaya. My friend Tom Smit, the Soul Gardener from “Kleipot” has been part of something similar for six years now. On the other side of the globe Alan Hirsch and friends discovered that they are like a “small boat in a big sea”. The Ordinary Radicals like Shane Claiborne have found it to be “The Simple Way”. Recently I have made friends with 3rd year students at Tukkies in Pretoria who are reframing “church” and are about to be embark upon this strange yet exciting faith journey.